2026 Carol Bolt Award Recipient
Supported by Playwrights Canada Press, York University Department of Theatre, Dance, & Performance, Scirocco Drama, Alberta Playwrights Network, Manitoba Association of Playwrights, Playwrights Atlantic Resource Centre.
Rez Gas by Cale Crowe & Genevieve Adam
After moving away from his home reservation to pursue a music career, Destin stumbles back into town with unexpected car trouble and lands at the Wide Wigwam, the diner at the center of the community. There he finds many of those who he left behind and who want to remind him of his history and his place in the community. Described as Corner Gas meets Come From Away, Rez Gas is a beautiful expression of Indigenous joy with a hip-hop-infused, unforgettable score.
The peer assessment panel said: “Playful, significant and musically accomplished, Rez Gas is full of baggage but never weighed down. Crowe and Adam play on tropes with deftness that alternately subverts and satisfies expectations, offering nuance on rez economics, fractured friendships and the pull of home.”
Genevieve Adam is a graduate of the George Brown Theatre School and holds an MFA from East15Acting School in the UK. Selected acting credits include Ginny & Georgia, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Mrs. America, The Handmaid’s Tale, Stag & Doe (Capitol Theatre), Annabel (BBC4), Measure for Measure (Thought for Food) and Recall (Toronto Fringe) – for which she was nominated as Outstanding Actress. As a playwright, her works have garnered nominations at the Doras (Heartless, Aki Studios), SummerWorks (Deceitful Above All Things: Outstanding New Play, Best Emerging Artist), Playwright’s Guild (Heratio, Tom Hendry Comedy) and Toronto Fringe (If the Shoe Fits, New Writing). Her play Dark Heart was named one of the top theatrical productions of the year by the Toronto Star. An audio version of her New France trilogy can currently be heard on the Stratford Festival’s Stratfest@Home digital platform. In 2025, Genevieve was awarded ACTRA’s Outstanding Performer Award for her role in this audio series. Genevieve is also the poet behind the whimsical #haikusofthepandemic, now available in paperback. www.genevieveadam.com
Born and raised on the Alderville First Nation territory in central Ontario, Canada, Cale Crowe was fueled by music from the time he had a heartbeat. That love of music & sense of “life soundtrack” would lead him to picking up his father’s guitar for the first time at age 12 and performing live for his first audience at 14. Cale himself says that “[at the time] music was [his] way of connecting & communicating with an outside world [he] longed to be a part of.” Today, performing using an acoustic guitar, an electronic drum pad, and a loop station pedal, Cale has performed at bars, theatres, and festivals from Sydney, Nova Scotia to Albuquerque, New Mexico. His blend of campfire-style folk and modern pop/rock reflects & builds upon the taste he developed all those years ago. Cale is finishing a third EP: 2024’s “Burn Blue”, an eight-song journey spanning multiple genres and themed around loss, regret, hope, and resilience. As for the future, Cale only hopes to continue to connect with people and uplift them with his music. Wherever life takes him, Cale will keep telling his story – and the stories of others – behind an acoustic guitar and a microphone.
Special thanks to Carol Bolt Award Peer Assessment Panelists: Pâmela Mala Sinha (Chair), Len Falkenstein, Donna-Michelle St. Bernard.